Dave Hailwood's Forum Posts

  • Hi Excal,

    Just tested the game on my ipad 3. It took about two minutes to load, which might put a few less patient players off. Then again, its always a pity to have to sacrifice graphically quality. It's looking good, and plays smoothly. I did find the controls a bit awkward to start with, but once I got a bit more used to them they started to feel quite intuitive. Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit more testing soon, though I'm still trying to finish up my own game for the competition (I'm at the 'polishing and trying to hunt down game breaking bugs' stage).

    Best of luck with it - it looks like a promising contender.

  • Hullo chaps!

    There's a new version of the Board Horde game on the front page. Here's the change list:

    1. A.i. can now get three heroes out at the same time.

    2. Dice changes colour to indicate whose go it is (based on a forum suggestion)

    3. Status effects now display above the heroes heads. If clicked on, they give a bit of info on what the effect does (also a forum suggestion)

    4. A few more attack animations, and instant death anim added.

    And here's the marvellous bug list! yaaaaaay!

    1. A.i. Occasionally rolls the dice four times when he has no heroes out, and stops the game working (just press back for now, if this happens)

    2. A.i.s turn sometimes ends before he can move, or he rolls a six and forgets to move, or he gets a hero out when there's already one stood on the entrance square.

    3. If a hero is killed on the entrance square, his HUD picture sometimes still displays as 'out' which causes collision issues with monsters.

    4. Sometimes when a blue barbarian dies, he spreads blood all over the bally shop (this is not a feature), and occasionally changes direction mid flight.

    5. Sometimes the computer a.i. beats me (clearly a bug, and nothing to do with my playing ability).

    6. If the warrior dies when he has a weakened status effect, he sometimes still has the effect present when he's next on the board.

    There are more bugs which I mean to fix over the next few days, but if you spot anything I haven't mentioned, or think of any brilliant ways to improve things then please let me know. So far everyone has been hugely helpful, and its been most appreciated (you beautiful marvellous people, you!)

    So, as there's two weeks left to the deadline most of my time will be spent refining what I've got, finding and destroying oh so many bugs, and attempting to optimise for mobile phone (which will be the biggest challenge, as the game is best played on a larger touch screen device).

    Chin chin, and whatnot.

  • rocky10529

    Blimey! Over 3,500 views and masses of 5 star ratings, and that's only on your first day of launch.

    very well done; it's nice to see the Newgrounds community are a bit more welcoming and receptive of thoughtful puzzle games than some communities that are out there.

    I look forward to the sequel, and seeing how this one does in the competition (the options button works absolutely fine on desktop using IE9, by the way).

  • TheStoepsel2001

    I've just gone through a bit of the text to find the spelling errors, so here's a list:

    In the tutorial:

    'The screen consit' - should be 'consists'

    'zombies are weak and vulnurable' should be 'vulnerable'.

    'shooting zombies will earn you expirience' should be 'experience'

    'regular cars' should be 'cards'

    then in the gym: 'increase damage dealed' should be 'dealt'.

    Considering english isn't your first language, you did remarkably well (better than a lot of english people). I'm sure I'll be drawn back into playing your game again soon, so if I notice any more spelling mistakes I'll be sure to let you know.

    It'll probably be a few more weeks before my own game's ready for submission, though you can follow its development in the Construct2 forum (it's called Board Horde). The trickiest part is going to be optimising the game for mobile phones, since board games are best played on larger screen devices like ipads.

    good luck, and I look forward to viewing any other game you create in the future.

  • Testing on ipad 3 using safari:

    I find that if I use a finger from each hand on either side of the screen, it registers two touches and runs really smoothly, but if I use a finger and thumb from just the one hand to pinch with it flickers around between zoomed in and zoomed out (even when I'm not pinching) and can't quite work out if I'm touching the device with two or three fingers.

  • transient

    I hope you do get back into it, as this looks insanely brilliant. Kind of like the Yellow Submarine of video games.

    Eye poppingly marvellous artwork, and great music. Keep up the good work.

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  • Just been playing the game a bit more (got as far as level 12 now. hurrah!) and there's a few things I've noticed. It does experience the occasional bit of slowdown though is doesn't effect the gameplay too much. Also the cog on the right top corner doesn't seem to do anything when I click it (I expect this is some sort of settings button?). I'll test it again in Chrome, and maybe on PC to see whether its a browser or device issue.

  • rocky10529

    The four months of work that you put into making this game really shows. Excellent presentation (except for the flashing boxes during the loading screen, which melted my brain a little), fantastic retro style music, and a really fun puzzle game. Once I figured out what I was supposed to do I found it very addictive, and although I only got as far as level 6 I will definitely be back for more (I was playing on Safari on an Ipad3, in case you're interested).

    A serious contender in the competition, and good luck with it. Even if it doesn't win, it's well worth pushing it onto mobile devices.

  • Kongregate Test 3:

    Just had another go in Hard mode, on Internet Explorer and I discovered a bug (which may be related to IE, but I thought I'd better mention it).

    I was several minutes into the game, flying around and shooting asteroids, then after a moment the controls stopped functioning properly; the ship started to spin round and round on its own and I had to hold two keys down at once just so I could get it to fly in one direction.

    further tests will follow at some point.

  • By the way, I was just checking the tags in your game, and they don't mention 'Touchjam' or 'Construct2' (though you have put 'construct'). I seem to remember it mentioning somewhere in the forum that these should both be in the tags if you're entering the competition (just wanted to make sure you don't miss being entered, on account of a technicality).

  • farflamex

    sometimes after putting so much effort into a game, it's good to take a little break from it.

    I wouldn't say that Kongregate has been a disaster for you, as there's a lot of positive feedback there, and most of the negative feedback simply relates to the badly positioned Ad preventing people from being able to play the game properly (and a few browser issues relating to IE). What you've learnt from that experience is to be careful in your ad positioning in future (though there will always be people who downrate your game simply because it has an ad in it, and they believe everything in life should be ad-less and free. Bloody hippies!). Also the constructive criticism on Kongregate seems to mirror what other people on the Construct 2 forum have been saying; the near static planet backdrop restricts the feeling of speed, and the combat can be a bit unexciting (being 8 way directional travel, this is a tricky one to tackle. Perhaps by just adding a Thruster for speed bursts, and some homing missiles to get the player started, it might help ease the player into the game and experience the deep world you have on offer).

    I think the way to go with Korelos sales is either selling on your own site as an exe, or through Windows 8. Might also be worth looking into MarketJs and seeing if you can get a publisher interested there.

    Anyway, as far as Board Horde is concerned, things are going well. The A.I. is functioning reasonably well for getting all three characters out at once, and it's managed to beat me on a few occassions even though its choices are entirely random. As I don't have a free day until Friday, I'm spending most of my evening 'sofa time' finishing off art assets on my ipad (I've created a retro style font, and a few more death animations etc).

    The tricky part is going to be optimising for iphones etc (as I don't have an iphone, though I have an ipod touch which should at least give me an idea of what to expect size-wise). There's definitely going to be a need for the ability to zoom, as the characters are very tricky to select on a phone due to their tiny size.

    anyway, thanks for the words of encouragement, and I will play your game some more when I get the chance (not just because I'm testing it. I really enjoy playing it and discovering new things each time).

  • —

    I just had a lot of fun finding gems and being eaten by zombies, so thanks for that. So far, this is my favourite of the Newgrounds entries that I've played as the power-ups etc give it a bit more lastability. I managed to kill 20 zombies before I died, which is much more than I've ever managed in real life.

    I did notice a few spelling mistakes here and there, but with the amount of text you're using it was inevitable (still, it might be worth a touch up before the end of the competition).

    I'm hoping to have my own contribution finished before the deadline, though I've got a lot of optimisation to do for smaller mobile devices such as iphone (since that seems to be the main device Tom Fulp is testing on. Most of the issues he's experienced with the current batch of games seems to relate to the audio, which is always a problem with Html5)

    Anyway, best of luck with the competition.

    • Dave

  • farflamex

    I think the reroll lockup bug is possibly a result of me having fiddled with the reroll system one time too many. I was aware of it, and will try sort it out in time for Saturdays update (aiming for Saturday this time as its the only day I have free to work on the game).

    I did try what you suggested with the 'getting a hero out and rolling for him' idea before I actually introduced the rolling a six thing, but it lead to a few awkward balance issues and made it more tricky for the other player to break away from the pack. Once I've finished with the bigger additions, such as fully functioning a.i. and a scoreboard, I will then focus more on getting the game balance right.

    With regards to the potions, as well as better positioned text objects which will alert you to having gained a certain power, I'm also hoping to have an in game menu the can be accessed from the top right of the screen, which will contain useful info on what does what for anyone who forgets. Hopefully with that and the Status Effect icons that will appear on the HUD pics, I'll have most angles covered.

    Thanks for the input again, and I'll get round to testing your space game again soon.

  • Kuso

    Fair point about the a.i. Taking ages to roll a six. I'll probably speed up his dice rolls a bit to make it less tiresome. I did try implementing farflamex idea about having the heroes reappear on the entrance square on the next roll after they die, but this threw up an unexpected error; if blues last hero died, followed by reds last hero, blue would appear on the entrance square, then on reds go he would appear on entrance square and kill him. Then blue would appear and kill him, and so on in an endless cycle!

    I'm currently working on some status icon designs which will appear on the HUD profile pictures (lightening bolt for haste etc). If I get time, I might put some visual effect on the heroes who have been affected by potions.

    harrio

    The automatic moving hero when there's only one out should be easy enough to do (he says optimistically, yet with a due sense of dread) so thanks for the idea.

    The trap and potion signs coming up early is something I hope to sort out by the next weekend update, though there's lots of other bugs to squash first. I've just discovered one when the a.i. managed to get characters out that had already escaped, so I best try and put a stop to those sort of shenanigans!

    Thanks again for all the suggestions, you brilliant marvellous people!

  • pixel perfick

    Heh! The first part of your comment amused me (and gave me a title for my autobiography).

    The a.i. settings will basically improve how observant the a.i. Is when moving a hero. At village Idiot level it will simply move heroes at random without worrying about what they're going to land on. The more advanced settings will check to see what their hero is going to land on; if it could move a wizard onto a potion, or a warrior onto a trap, then it'll choose the wizard. The highest level a.i. will check to see whether there's more potions on the board than enemies, then select from the HUD the hero most suited to the task and will also do more complex things like moving a hero who is closest to the exit.

    Considering the amount of problems I've had just trying to get the a.i. to have more than one hero out at once, its likely I'll only get as far as Village Idiot A.I. before the Newgrounds competition deadline.

    Getting the exact number on the dice needed to escape is something I had considered but forgot about, so thanks for reminding me. I may give it a try if I get the time, and see if it works ok. I'm hoping to eventually have lots of options on the menu screen that you can change to alter the feel of the game (such as Rogue mode, where you only get one life per hero, or Massacre mode where wins are based on the amount of enemies killed). Before all that I next hope to get a scoreboard up and running, sort out all the text objects and exterminate all the bugs!

    Thanks for giving me some more ideas, and best of luck with your Dungeon Crawler.